


Of Beholders and Promises

by Araminia16



Series: Of Growing Up [6]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Adorable, D&D, Eleven is mischievous, F/M, Feels, Fluff, blanket fort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 14:51:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12655710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Araminia16/pseuds/Araminia16
Summary: Even though they don't get to play D&D often anymore it always serves to bring their little family together. Set in High School.MIleven is literally the cutest and most wholesome pairing I know of currently.





	Of Beholders and Promises

I should be working on a bunch of other things but after the feels that Mileven have given me this week this story just had to get out. I hope you guys enjoy. I might do more if I feel like it but for now this is it. :)

They are also a couple of years older in high school. Sophmores maybe. 

XxOxx

Instead of nearly every weekend their D&D sessions were usually every other week, sometimes just one time a month depending on what each of them had going on. AV club usually, but sometimes other things like family dinners or sickness but still, even in high school they all piled into Mike’s basement and brought out the rulebooks, the board and went into a separate world for a while. Lately though they had two extra party members and it only added to their fun. 

Mike was, as usual, the DM of the group leading them further and further into the dark tunnels. However, the thing that was unusual or at least different from their old games was the girl sitting in his lap. Eleven watched the game with relative excitement behind Mike’s divider from her vantage point which just happened to be the curve where his neck met his shoulder. She found that it was the perfect cradle for her some time ago. His left arm curved around her to both hold her steady and keep her close. 

Mike had traded his usual chair for a larger one that he had found at a garage sale and paid for by money he had earned doing odd things around his neighborhood. It was far more comfortable and it also made room for the two of them. 

Sometimes she would sit down in her old fort, reading books, but Mike didn’t play as well those days. He would constantly watch her out of the corner of his eye, even after two years of her being back with him. There was still the fear that she would be gone again and he wanted to waste none of the time they had together. Sometimes she sat down in a chair next to him, or at least that was what she did before the green monstrosity entered the picture. Now, just as often as not she curled up in his embrace with her legs stretched across his thighs, sometimes reading a book and sometimes not. 

The other party member, after much coaching from the other three, but mostly Lucas, was Max. After some convincing they had gotten her to relinquish the “zoomer” title and adopt one of a rogue. Versatile, fast, and sassy her elven thief had gotten them quite a bit of loot and fame that otherwise they weren’t able to achieve and it made her feel more like a part of the group. 

The rest of them: Dustin, Will, and Lucas were currently arguing over which path to take. Right, left or center? Max, tired of it nudged Lucas with her thigh which was not difficult considering that they were side by side, the length of their outer thighs touching. They were less obvious than the two at the head of the board, but affection flirted between them all the same. 

“Let me do a trap roll.” Max requested. 

“Go for it.” Mike responded, his hand lazily stroked along Eleven’s thigh. She was Jane to the outside world, but that name had never quite caught on in their circle. It was not her name when she first came to them in the night, cold, wet and terrified. El is who she was with her family and that was fine with her.

The sound of dice clattering onto the table and the subsequent roll of 13 revealed a large crushing trap to their left. Dustin, who had been telling them to go left sulked and changed his vote to the right. 

Lucas grinned and high fived Max. “Told you.” He taunted Dustin. 

“Shut up. Let’s just go.” 

Mike continued his narration and Eleven could feel his heart beat in his neck. The pace was picking up and she knew that he was about to surprise them with something interesting. 

“Kobolds.” He shouted, “Charging down the tunnel.”

“How many?” Will cried. 

“The darkness obscures their numbers. It would be hard to tell unless…”

“Can I see them?” Max again.

“Roll.”

“Damnit. 12.” She hissed.

“Their little bodies and sharp spears thrust at you.”

“Sleep. I’ll cast sleep.” Will shouted.

“Roll.” 

“15!” He pumped his fist up.

“Kobolds drop around you caught in the effect of the spell.”

“Let’s kill them so they don’t come back looking for us.” Lucus chimed in.

“But that’s like murder.” Dustin sighed.

“They’re Kobolds. Bloodthirsty yipping little monsters.”

“I have to agree with him.” Max shrugged. 

“You would.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You guys are dating. You have to agree.”

“Will? What do you think?”

Will was still quiet and they all knew that his time in the Upside Down and when the shadow monster had taken him still weighed heavy on his soul but most of the time he was fine and he looked at the board, then back up. “They will sniff us out again if we leave them here. You know that Dustin.” 

So they gave each Kobold a coup de grace kill and set down further.

Eleven lifted her head, soft brown curls brushing up against Mike’s neck and she put her mouth next to his ear and whispered something while grinning. 

“Get a room.”

“Boo.” 

They were peppered with popcorn as the other four catcalled and hooted at the pair.

Mike pulled back and looked down at her, eyes wide and slowly his lips turned upward in a grin of mischief. He dipped down to give her a quick kiss and he heard the gagging of his friends. A quick middle finger at their direction only resulted in more snickers.

“Oh. I don’t like that at all. El. What did you tell him?” Dustin asked in an increasingly high pitch despite his voice drop the past year. 

“Yeah I don’t like that look either.” Will joined in. 

Mike leaned forward, arm tightening on El to keep her in place. “Suddenly a strange presence fills the tunnel. It presses in on you like a glove and with it a just of unnatural wind. It’s coming.” Eleven shivered at his dark tone, this part of Mike secretly thrilled her. He told his stories so well. 

“Let’s go guys. I don’t like the sound of that.” Max chimed in and the rest of them agreed and so they ran down the tunnel. 

Mike opened it up into a large cavern filled with bones and gold. 

“Is it a dragon?” 

“No its not a dragon, Will. We are underground.” Lucas hissed. 

“It’s a beholder.” Dustin panted. 

“No. It can’t be a beholder.” Lucas argued. 

“With a crash and a rush of air the tunnel where you entered is broken apart and out comes,” He pulled up and slammed down onto the table a figure. “The beholder.” 

“Fucking shit.” Dustin half wailed. 

“Why do you always do this?” Lucas growled.

“It was at the behest of your Dungeon Mistress guys.”

“Why you gotta do us like that, El? I thought you liked us.” 

Eleven just grinned. Mike had asked her a while back if she wanted to help him plan a campaign and this had been her contribution. “Roll for initiative.” She ordered.

Dice hit the table in a large clatter, and then finally Mike rolled for the monster. “Lucas and Dustin are stunned by the beholder’s initial mind blast from one eyestalk. Will, what are you going to do?” 

“Missile.” And he rolled, landing a hit on the monster.

“Trap roll.” Max said quietly and her roll revealed three traps. “Good.”

The battle raged for twenty minutes before they defeated the monster. Will was out of spells and at least one leg on his Wizard was out of commission. Dustin and his dwarf were severely wounded and Lucas got out of it with a hex to his arm which he would need dispelled by a priest. The only one who was not in some way disabled was Max, who surprisingly had landed the final blow to the monster’s central eye through the anti-magic ray. 

“What are you going to do now?”

“Get as much of that shit as we can carry and get the hell out of here.”

“How?” Lucas asked blearily, “The tunnel is blocked off.”

“Detect illusion.” Max again. 

“How did she get good?”

“My girl is a fast learner.”

“Shut up.” 

“You see a glimmer of something on the wall to the right.” Mike narrated. 

Eventually they revealed a lift that would take them to the surface and piled on as much gold and magical items as they could carry. Will suggested that they take the central eye of the beholder as a trophy and possibly to use later.

“What time is it?” Dustin asked with a yawn.

“Oh shit.” Mike looked at his watch. “It’s ten.” 

He noticed that Eleven had her eyes closed. “I knew you guys could do it.” She said with a sleepy smile.

“Well since its Saturday night anyway you guys want to do an old fashioned sleep over?”

“Old fashioned? We just had one last month.” 

“Whatever.” Dustin retorted. “I just have to let my mom know.”

“Me too.” Will chimed in, followed by Lucas and Max. 

“What about Hopper?” Mike murmured to Eleven. 

“Give me the radio.” 

Mike handed her the radio and she turned it on and started to beep out Morse code. “Staying with Mike and the guys tonight at his house.”

A few minutes later, “No you are not. You are coming home.”

“No. I am staying.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

There was no answer for a couple more minutes. “I’ll be there at 8am sharp. Be at the door or you are going to be grounded.” 

“Thank you.” 

“There. Taken care of now.”

“We need to get everything put…okay.” Will watched as the game board and table floated up and sorted out before his eyes. El didn’t even really get nosebleeds anymore with the small stuff, just things that took a lot out of her. 

With the space cleared the room grew in size and one by one each of the teenagers filtered down into the room. “You want to sleep here or in my room?” He asked them and they all voted for here so extra blankets and pillows were brought down. The pullout sofa was set up and Dustin and Will took up residence on it, Lucas and Max had made their own relatively comfortable bed and they each took turns up and downstairs washing up and dressing down for bed. 

Mike and Eleven were last and they took up residence in a larger version of the original blanket fort that she had called home for a total of seven days. She was dressed in a tank top and a pair of Mike’s long shorts and he was nearly in the same. They laid facing each other in the darkness and amounts the sounds of the sleepers. Brown eyes met across a space no bigger than the length of a hand as they shared the same air. 

He could count on one hand the number of times that they had slept in the same place next to each other. The first had been after she closed the Gate. Pale, with dried blood from her nose and ears he had been terrified to see her. After Hopper had laid her down on the couch he had shoved in to kneel down next to her. “Mike” She croaked out softly and he had grabbed her hand. 

“I’m here.”

“I promised.” 

That night no one had gone home. They had all slept in this sort of funny dog pile of children with blankets on the floor. Even the older teens. Mike had taken up residence right next to the couch because no force on earth would separate him from her. Nearly a whole year had been taken from them and he would be damned if anyone kept them apart right now. So he slept next to her and when he woke later in the night he found her small form curled up next to him and he felt whole again for the first time in forever. 

If Hopper had noticed he didn’t bring it up the next morning. 

The next day she had nearly lost it when Hopper told her they had to go back. She was nearly a screaming, crying mess and he was not much better. Hopper sat them both down and told him to wait a month. He would fix it in a month. Neither of them had been happy but at least he knew she was alive. He watched her go with fresh tears in his eyes. 

But that next month was the Snowball and she looked so beautiful and his heart he was sure had stopped for a second or two when she had walked in in that blue dress. It was the happiest he had been since seeing her again. 

The next times were accidents. Like when he snuck out on a snow day and happened to fall asleep in the same bed. Hopper had sure as hell not been happy when he got home. Eleven had let him escape. 

But now, now, they were looking into each other’s eyes and he felt complete. The guys would call him a wuss or a sap or something but he couldn’t give two shits what they thought. He grinned at her and she gave him one of those smiles that warmed him all over, starting at his heart. She had such a beautiful smile. 

Eleven inched closer and pressed her lips to his gently. He returned her embrace with equal softness and they moved slowly, delicately in mimicry of activities they were still too young for. They weren’t sure how long they had been locked in their tender embrace but when he pulled back and she had this faint blush and he was sure he did too. 

Eleven closed the gap with a little more firmness, more ferocity but not much more. Mike was as eager as she was and they grew more animated in kissing. His hand cupped her cheek and she tangled her fingers in his brown locks and he kissed her like he would die without her. Like she was his soul and she returned that thought as much as she could. 

When they finally parted she was panting lightly and she could feel her heart racing and a strange feeling low in her belly that had come on sporadically in the past few months when she would look at him and think about kissing him. 

“We should sleep.” He sounded rougher, breathless and it only served to speed up her heart once more. 

“I know.” Eleven whispered back. “Will you be here when I wake up?”

“Definitely.” 

“Promise?”

“Promise.” 

He kissed her again and they fell asleep after staring at each other with adoration and eventually they nodded off with foreheads touching and his arm thrown over her side. Together. 

XxOxX

They are so freaking cute and wholesome. If your SO doesn’t look at you the way that Eleven and Mike look at each other you gotta find someone that does. So many feels. I can’t believe they waited til the last ep. They were just so happy.

Also. I know some about D&D. My dad was a DM. But I probably don't have everything right. I do play BG and BG2 though so at least I have some knowledge of the ruleset.


End file.
